


How it Ends

by orphan_account



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-14
Updated: 2013-09-14
Packaged: 2017-12-26 13:21:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,452
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/966405
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>‘The day you stop making stupid jokes will be the day the world ends.’ </p><p>At the time, Michael hadn't realized how right he was.</p>
            </blockquote>





	How it Ends

‘You’re a fucking idiot,’ muttered Michael, but a grin slipped across his face regardless, smoothing over the words and ensuring no hurt was dealt.

‘Aw but Michael, it was top!’ Gavin grinned, and turned to Ray for back up.

Ray just held his hands up. ‘Nope! Don’t look at me! I’m not standing up for your shitty puns, he laughed, spinning back around in his chair to face his screen. 'It's fucking Barbara all over again.'

Seemingly outnumbered, Gavin admitted defeat. ‘You guys are plebs. That was a good call and you know it.’

‘It was terrible. Get out,’ Michael replied, still focused on his editing program.

‘Maybe you just didn’t… hear it properly,’ Gavin choked out between laughs, before he was tackled to the ground by a truly _furious_ Michael.

‘Yeah? Yeah? See how you like it!’ Michael taunted childishly, picking up an object and brandishing it in Gavin’s face. His grin threatened to overtake his face.

The cause of the lads troubles at current were a pack of party poppers Gavin had discovered lying around somewhere. Since his incredible discovery, he’d been dragging the pack everywhere, popping them in celebration and even at random.

However, the last party popper he’d enthusiastically popped had been right next to Michael’s ear. Gavin, the idiot, had been planning it all day. He’d waited until Michael was distracted before sneaking up behind him and popping it full force, and he’d temporarily deafened Michael, who’d proceeded to lovingly beat the shit out of him.

Afterwards, he’d been complaining about how his ears were hurting, and made the mistake of saying ‘My ears ringing now, thanks a fucking lot.’

To which Gavin, barely restraining himself from collapsing into a puddle of giggles, had replied ‘Well you better pick it up!’.

There’d been a moment of pure silence in the office before everyone let out a collective groan. There were murmurings of ‘Kill yourself’ and ‘Get the fuck out of here,’ that had led to Gavin pointlessly defending himself, arguing that his joke had been ‘Tippy top!’

The final joke –if you could call it that- had pushed Michael over the edge, and that was why he was currently lying on top of the Brit on the floor, holding back peals of laughter as Gavin whined beneath him, squirming away from the popper being waved threateningly in his face.

‘Shut up asshole. You should be lucky I’m even letting you talk anymore,’ Michael retorted, when Gavin complained he could barely breathe.

‘Don’t do it Michael! Please! My ears are delicate, they’re fragile! Have mercy!’ he begged, and his eyes widened comically when Michael placed it right next to his ear.

‘No more shitty puns?’ Michael demanded.

‘No more! Honest! Now get off me!’ Gavin promised, heaving with the exertion of trying to get Michael off him. Trying being the key word.

‘Fine. Dipshit,' Michael murmured affectionately, and dragged himself off Gavin.

Once free, Gavin immediately plonked down in his chair, but grinned triumphantly. ‘Jokes on you, it was a ploy! You’ll never defeat my spirit!’

Michael had just groaned exasperatedly. ‘The day you stop making stupid jokes is the day the world ends.’

 ---

Now though, as he sat perched on the rock hard chairs of the hospital, clinging onto the side of the bed and Gavin’s hand for dear life, he realised how right he’d been.

Gavin was lying in front of him, deathly pale, but still smiling. He hadn’t stopped smiling, not once.

Not after he’d passed out and had a seizure in the middle of the Let’s Play room. Not after he’d been driven to the hospital, and had a brain hemorrhage in the ambulance. Not after they’d sat him, Geoff and Griffon down and told them.

Gavin had cancer.

Since then he’d been rapidly deteriorating, fading before their very eyes. His already slim body continued to lose weight, and they’d been keeping him fed through a tube. He’d been sleeping more and more, and as the days dwindled on the doctors had warned them exactly what they already knew.

That time was quickly running out.

This was it, they’d told him. Gavin couldn’t keep going for any longer. His body had shut down nearly everything, and it was a miracle he was still alive.

When Michael had told him this he’d simply smiled again, and said, ‘Duh. I’m not just gunna roll over.’

That had been a day ago. Maybe two. But it was painfully transparent to anybody that this was the end of the line, even for Gavin.

Geoff, Millie and Griffon had been the second last to say goodbyes. Everyone from the office - his friends, his family - had been in at some point, exceedingly so the past few days, and Gavin had made his peace.

Now, though, Michael and Ray sat before him. Honestly, Ray was meant to have been earlier, but he’d only just arrived, and like hell was he going to miss saying goodbye.

So here they sat, Michael and Ray sitting at the side of Gavin’s bed, struggling to find the words. Every time Michael opened his mouth to say it, say anything, Gavin had just smiled at him sadly, like he knew exactly what he wanted to say, and Michael hadn’t been able to say it.

Ray stood. ‘I can’t sit here in silence for any longer. It’s gunna kill me.’ As he realised exactly what he’d said he reached out as if to take the words back, and Gavin had laughed. A small, pained laugh, but it had made Michael smile.

‘Of course you’d find that funny,' he whispered, and that was it.

He started crying, and before he knew it Ray and Gavin were crying too, and he was holding onto Gavin like he’d never let him go and he felt Gavin tug Ray down next to him until they were lying down in an uncomfortable, awkward, heartbreaking hug. It felt like eternity passed in the span of a few minutes, the dust in the air seemingly slowing to nearly nothing, the rattly breaths coming from Gavin drawing out far too long, the feeling of a breaking heart cracking into pieces with every second that passed. 

It felt like eternity, because to Michael, it was.

Eventually he sat up, wiping at his puffy eyes with a numb hand. He saw Ray pull back too, and Gavin smiled at them again.  
‘Tell Geoff and Griffon and…’ his voice faded and he seemed to zone out,before he jerked lightly back into reality, ‘And Millie that I love them.’

‘No, Gav, don’t say this shit just yet-’

‘I gotta, Michael,’ Gavin replied softly. So Michael shut up, and let the tears slide down his face as he watched Gavin draw in a rattly breath.

‘You were the best friends any guy could ask for,’ he whispered, and smiled at them, and it was so tragic and beautiful it broke Michael’s heart. ‘I love you.’ 

And there had been absolutely no hesitation when Michael whispered it back, and he heard Ray murmur it too. He pulled back and looked at Gavin before he leant in to kiss him, and despite that he was crying and heartbroken and Gavin smelled weird it was perfect, and fuck how cliché it sounded because this was Gavin and he was dying and Michael only wished he’d done this years ago when he’d met him.

‘I waited this fucking long,’ he joked, but his voice cracked, betraying him.

‘You always were a dumb,’ Gavin agreed weakly. ‘Ray, take care of Micool for me.’

Ray blinked away the wetness in his eyes and nodded. ‘Of course. X-Ray and Vav, right? Till the end.’ And he barely finished the last part of the sentence before he was crying again.

‘X-Ray and Vav, always. And always Team Nice Dynamite,’ Gavin whispered, looking at Michael and smiling. 'I mean it. Take care of each other.’

‘Dude, of course,' Michael promised. Beside him, Ray nodded.

‘Good.’ With evident relief, Gavin closed his eyes. ‘Or I’ll have to come back and haunt you.’

And with that, his breathing evened out into nothing, the machine monitoring his vitals went crazy, and Ray dragged Michael blindly out of the way as doctors poured in, ignoring the two men breaking in the corner.

He hugged Ray tightly as they sobbed, dignity gone to the fucking wind because this was it. ‘No more stupid jokes,’ Ray murmured brokenly, voice the pure embodiment disbelief and denial and _pain_. And when Geoff came in, eyes as red and face as wet as theirs, to lead them outside, Michael found himself thinking one thing.

He was right.

The day Gavin stopped making stupid jokes, Michael’s world ended.


End file.
